


Storytellers

by foundCarcosa



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 05:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundCarcosa/pseuds/foundCarcosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela's challenges are always tough, but there's always a reason for them. Sometimes, shutting your trap is good for you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Storytellers

**Author's Note:**

> I think I like metaphors a little too much. I’m sorry.
> 
> Also, Isabela declared the bet forfeit on the technicality that he’d left the tavern with Marian, and put all their drinks on his tab for a week.

It starts with Isabela. It always starts with Isabela.

Ale sloshes over the tankard she thrusts in his direction, adding to the stain collection on the warped wooden table. “Varric, don’t give me that,” she insists in response to some jibe he’d made. “ _You_ couldn’t even keep your mouth shut for five minutes!”

“Where’s the challenge in that?” Varric scoffs, tipping his own mug up to his mouth only to furrow his brow in annoyance — empty, again.

“Challenge, you say?” Isabela’s wicked grin is unsurprising to see, and when she leans forward, breasts nearly spilling out of her shirt, he puts down the empty mug, steeples his fingers, and waits for it.  
“I _challenge_ you not to speak for an entire day.”

“Oh, I’m sure I can—”

“You’ll travel with me and Marian the entire day. No smart commentary, no muttering your story notes to yourself, no schmoozing.”

“All right, that’s a little—”

“When Marian’s business is done, we’ll come here. No speaking until Marian goes home for the night.”

Varric narrows his eyes at her, and her smirk only deepens. “That’s asking a lot, Izzy.”

Her cackle is raucous, intensified by the ale she’d already drunk. “Oh, I know, lover. I know.  
By the way, the next round is on you.”

—

Marian cocks an eyebrow at Isabela when she reveals the bet, but says nothing. She doesn’t have to. The disbelief is written all over her face. Even Anders grins bemusedly. “That’s terribly daunting, you know.”

“You think I make bets I don’t think I can win, Lightning Rod?” Isabela winks.

Varric trudges at his usual two-paces-behind, frowning intensely as he tries to think of a loophole. But Isabela watches him shrewdly at every turn — a rogue can’t hoodwink a rogue — and at one point, he opens his mouth to make a retort, only to snap it shut immediately.  
Her snicker turns the frown into a scowl.

And Marian… Marian parries Isabela’s idle commentary with expert ease, a verbal repartee that makes Varric nearly ache to join in. He watches her instead, the lightning-quick smirks and the flash of her gold-flecked eyes, the way she absently swipes her bangs away from her face and the ease with which she folds her arms in listening. They call her “Champion” now, and next to the entry in his journal he’d attempted to sketch out the vacant, bemused half-smile she’d given at the Knight-Commander’s declaration. But that particular twist of expression eluded him, the exact nature of it lost in the retelling, and he’d let his hand wander to sketching the strands of her hair and the curve of her jaw, a floating Marian-hand in the margin, fingers curled around her staff.

Isabela catches him looking off into the horizon on the ferry away from the Gallows, smiling slightly to himself, and leans down to whisper, “Coin for your thoughts, Varric.”  
He glowers at her. She winks and strolls away to where Marian is perched, throwing an arm around the other woman’s shoulder and leaning in conspiratorially.  
A flush of… _something_ flares in his breast, and he looks away from them, watching the boat slowly coast towards the docks.

He follows them into the Hanged Man with more than a fair bit of trepidation. So far, he’d lasted — lasted through a meeting with the First Enchanter, a man who always sent his snark-radar a-spinning, lasted through a couple of skirmishes on the Wounded Coast in which Bianca seemed chattier than usual as if to make up for his silence, lasted through _Isabela_ , who’d invested enough coin in this bet that she’d hurt a fair bit if she lost.

It is Isabela who buys the first round, and they clash tankards with the enthusiasm of nightly drinkers before drinking deeply. Ale sloshes over Marian’s lip and down her chin, and she wipes it away with her forearm and just enough sheepishness in her expression that Varric is strangely charmed.

“Tell us a story, Marian.” Isabela folds her hands under her chin and gazes with comical raptness at their companion, who flushes.

“I’m not the storyteller here,” she responds immediately, and Varric sighs, draining his mug.  
But surprisingly, the itch to speak, to yarn, to weave his words… has abated. He is not yet comfortable, not completely — but he wishes to hear Marian speak. To hear Marian yarn. To hear Marian’s word-weaving.

“I dub thee storyteller,” Isabela declares solemnly, withdrawing one of her daggers and tapping Marian on each shoulder with the flat of the blade. Marian snorts, but still shakes her head.

“I… do have a story. But I’ll… I’ll tell it later.” Her glance darts in Varric’s direction for just a second. He catches the look, this time, because he is watching her with a steadiness he doesn’t normally allow himself. He wonders how many looks he’s missed, burying his desire to absorb everything about Marian in bluster and verbal volleying. How many times she’d said something with a subtext only for his ears, that he’d missed because he was too busy saving face he hadn’t even lost in the first place.

 _Overcompensation,_ Isabela might have called it, and for once she wouldn’t be talking about Fenris’ greatsword.

Tonight, Isabela doesn’t press the issue. She smirks, sits back, takes a long, deep drink. And the ensuing silence nearly deafens Varric.

_The night’s almost done. Just a little while longer…_

—

“Let me guess — Isabela’s going to owe you one hell of a lot of coin if I leave right now,” Marian whispers quickly to Varric as Isabela hunts down the bartender who’d begun avoiding their table.  
Varric nods, smirking faintly. Had he noticed before, that Marian smells faintly of embrium, even under the pungent smell of ale and the clinging mustiness of Darktown?

“Then let’s go.”

He cocks his head, thinking he hadn’t heard her correctly — but she’s got that quick, uncertain smile on her face, the one that means she’s doing something that she might regret, and Varric will be damned if he lets this be another regrettable decision on her part.  
He gets to his feet, his head swimming just enough for the coin to have been well-spent, and hurries after Marian. Isabela’s shout of surprise and indignation barely escapes through the door that swings shut behind them.

“Where are we going?”  
His voice sounds rough and alien to him, and he clears his throat.

“I said I’d tell you a story.”  
She says no more until they’ve reached Hightown, the gangs absent for once as they make for the Hawke estate. Even the Feddic guy and his strange son are asleep when they get inside, and they are unaccosted as Marian leads him to her chambers. Varric slowly unbuckles Bianca and lets her rest against the wall just inside Marian’s bedroom, his heart dancing a merry jig in his chest.

She does tell him a story, but she tells it in a way he’d never thought of — with lips and hands and that tense, uncertain little smile as ruddy, scarred flesh is revealed a little at a time. The detail of her body is a sidebar within the story — the way she flinches at first when he runs his fingers over one scar or another, the tension slowly melting away as she grows accustomed to the reverent touch, the way she curves her taller self around him and draws him in. Her eyes are as alert as her body, letting him know when it is his turn to chime in, to add to the story, to flesh it out and make it sweet.  
At first it is her story, slow and unsure in the telling, and then it is his, amazed and fervent, and then it is theirs, sometimes a bit discordant and sometimes a bit awkward but always falling back into harmonious rhythm just when it needs to.

They are quiet, even when she brings him, even when he brings her — and brings her again, just to watch her writhe and arch just a little longer.  
Varric strokes her hair as she stretches out next to him, and starts to speak, only to realise that everything he would have said has already been said, and in a much better fashion.

He does regain his voice eventually, and the raucous shenanigans at the tavern and on the Wounded Coast and in Hightown and Lowtown and Darktown continue as usual. He spins his tales with his celebrated skill, and charms noble and vagrant alike.   
But when Isabela isn’t looking, Marian leans over and presses her lips to his cheek, the side of his neck, and straightens as if she’d done nothing, and he remembers his own story is still being written, and for once, he is not the only teller.


End file.
